Indoor-Air Quality: How The Stuff In Your Garage Gets Into Your Living Space

Jan 31, 2012

Several factors can significantly impact indoor air quality, so it’s important to develop a whole-house solution to indoor-air quality problems, and this strategy should include evaluating the impact that garage pollutants have on your home.

Why The Garage?

Most garage spaces are used to house old (or new) chemicals, cleaners and paints that homeowners don’t want in their home. In addition, the garage is a commonly used area for housing lawn mowers and barbecues, equipment that produces harmful carbon monoxide as a byproduct of combustion. Finally, most homeowners park their cars in the garage, in order to keep it out of the blazing summer heat.

How Do Pollutants Move From One Space To Another?

There are a series of components that come into play that allow pollutants to move from the garage and into the home:

Small air leaks that exist in the shared wall between the garage and the home give pollutants an access point.

In addition to leaks, a different rate of pressure often exists in the garage and the home, which will generally lead to air infiltration into the home.

How Can You Solve This Problem?

There are a few simple, relatively low-cost steps you can take to ensure that pollutants from your garage don’t get into your home:

When warming or cooling your car, back it into the driveway first and close the garage door.

Use the shared door between the garage and home as little as possible.

Seal air leaks in the shared wall. If the garage side of the wall is finished, have an expert help you to find and fix leaks.

Use an exhaust fan in the garage space, which will help to circulate pollutants out of the garage in the first place.

Store pollutants and equipment in an alternative location, like a garden shed, so there’s less of a chance for pollutants to impact air quality.

Get a handle on the pollutants that can contribute to poor indoor air quality. If you’d like help to remedy the problem, or if you have questions, contact the experts at Rinaldi’s Air Conditioning today.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about indoor air quality and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

Rinaldi’s services Orlando, Florida and the surrounding areas. Visit our website to see our special offers and get started today!